Television viewing has traditionally been a passive experience, with viewers watching a program and able to provide only limited feedback. Producers of television programs have used various methods in an attempt to provide a semi-interactive viewing experience. It is presumed that ‘interactive viewing’ creates a greater public interest in the program and contributes to creating a larger viewing base. Methods for involving viewers include coordinating external contests and promotions, however, these are not real time. Because of difficulties in obtaining widescale real-time viewer feedback, some programs incorporate a studio audience as part of the program where the audience has the ability to provide real time feedback via handheld devices. The real time feedback is often used to select a favorite contestant (e.g., for contest-themed programs evaluating a particular contestant or performer).
While such technology can be readily implemented in a studio via wireless devices or voting consoles on each seat in a studio audience, obtaining feedback from television viewers in real-time is difficult. Past mechanisms for soliciting real time viewer feedback have included announcing a toll free telephone number on the program which callers could call and interact with an automated system. Such systems allow viewers to provide their feedback in terms of selections, votes, or opinions regarding a specific program. However, such telephone numbers were dedicated for providing feedback for a certain program and are usually limited in duration. Obviously, viewers without a telephone or unwilling to dial the telephone number were precluded from providing feedback.
Similar mechanisms for soliciting viewer feedback have been defined using other technologies. One such technology is based on text messaging—specifically “short message service” or SMS—which often uses a cell phone for message origination. Some television shows have displayed a “shortcode”, which is an SMS destination address, for directing viewers' real-time feedback. Similar to using different telephone numbers for telephone-based view feedback, separate shortcodes are simultaneously employed to collect input for different viewer's votes or opinions.
The technology of two-way cable networks provides the opportunity for enhanced viewer feedback without requiring viewers to access a telephone. Two-way cable technology provides the possibility of television producers and cable operators to provide a more interactive viewing experience. However, to date, few useful and effective applications for user interaction have been defined and the technology used in two-way cable networks has not been adapted very well for receiving viewer feedback. Therefore, systems and methods for real-time interactive viewer feedback are required for programming on a cable network.